Ain’t Misbehavin’

Published Thursday 6 March 2008 at 15:40 by Andrew Blades

Ain’t Misbehavin’ is not quite a musical - it’s more a revue. Some 30 Fats Waller tunes are crammed into just under two hours, which makes for a high quotient of hummable melodies and lyrical ingenuity.

Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company mostly executes this with panache. The band, led by experienced recitalist Dominic Harlan, doesn’t languish in the pit, instead it is pushed centre stage among the singers, and they seem to relish it.

The cast themselves take a while to warm to their material, and at the beginning of this first performance there were a few tonal insecurities and mistimed steps. Hopefully these will be rectified in the subsequent run and by the time they sashayed through The Jitterbug Waltz, there was a good stage dynamic between the five performers.

The comical numbers sparkle - Your Feet’s too Big, Find out what they like and Fat and Greasy form a trio of howlers in Act II, replete with razor-sharp rhymes and slapstick choreography. Just when it seems the show will end in unbounded mirth, the mournful and politically-conscious Black and blue reminds us that Harlem’s Cotton Club was not all spats and saxes, but in the centre of a ghetto. It is impeccably sung in five-part harmony.

This show reminds us that Waller the composer is worthy of the company of his more celebrated contemporaries - Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and George Gershwin - and should appeal to anyone interested in twenties and thirties New York.